Came across a 1950 newspaper article giving a possible lead on Ellis Chambers, who drew much funny animal art:
"I threw him some chum but he swam away. Gulls followed him above. I could see his head break water further out. "Sure he looked healthy. You know there haven't been any fish to speak of in the bay for a couple of years.
I think the seal cleans them up. He could eat 60 or 60 a day." In Jamaica Bay Jamaica Bay harbors 150-pound eal, Ellis Chambers and two fellow fisermen said yesterday. "I'm from Seattle where we have seal all the time; I wouldn't be mistaken," said Chambers, a cartoonist who lives at 609 Cross Bay Boulevard on the bay shore." -
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/450579283/